It mustBe the finding of a satisfaction, and mayBe of a man skating, a woman dancing, a womanCombing. The poem of the act of the mind.

I enjoy spending time with words carefully chosen -- words that seek to find “what will suffice.” It is an implicit recognition that language can only approach and never fully arrive at its destination.

Yeats declares, “talk to me of originality and I will turn upon you with rage,” reminding us that the poet must recognize what came before, resist complacency, and find “what will suffice.”

We Tweet and chat with Snaps. We update our status and Meme the world. However, we no longer read enough poetry – even though doing so could change the world. Although Auden reminds us that “poetry makes nothing happen …,” reading poetry does, as “it survives, / A way of happening, a mouth.”

Li Young Lee writes of his father liking his mother’s hair pulled tight into a bun. But, searching for what will suffice, Lee observes:

But I knowit is because of the waymy mother’s hair fallswhen he pulls the pins out.Easily, like the curtainswhen they untie them in the evening.

So do yourself a favor: Slow down, spend time with language, pick up a collection of poetry, and find what will suffice.

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By the time this airs, the World Series will be over. Recall game six of the NLCS; the Cubs were up 5-0 in the ninth, yet the crowd looked terrified and nervous. Any other team, and this lead would have produced smiles and excitement.

Let me turn back the clock to about six months ago: I made a decision to go cold turkey in regards to superstition. It may sound silly, but it had become a problem.

Dot one: Every year around this time we are flooded with “top ten” lists.

Dot two: As an English professor, I am often asked: what are your favorite books?

Dot three: I’m nearing my mid-forties.

My reading suggestions might hold some weight; as I tell my students, my title provides a built-in Ethos. So maybe I ought to adopt my nasally academic voice and produce a list of books you all “should” read to make you better and smarter people.

James, the brother of Jesus, proclaims in Chapter 1, verse 19 of his Biblical epistle: “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.”

Later, in Chapter 3, verses 3-5, he refers to the idea that horses are led by bits put into mouths, and that the largest of ships are steered by the smallest of rudders – both of which he connects to a tongue that makes “great boasts” while reminding us that a “great forest is set on fire by a small spark.”

We moved to Rockford in the summer of 2008; I was hired at Rockford University the same time as our then new president, Robert Head. Shortly thereafter, Barack Obama was elected president. My two boys, both black, had the incredibly unique experience of growing up in a world where both the president of their dad’s University and the president of the United States looked “like them.”